


Measured In Cakes And Inches

by Dyce



Series: Little Birds [2]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Family Fluff, Gen, after the war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 06:29:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3164750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dyce/pseuds/Dyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After 'Little Birds', Peeta and Katniss continue to rebuild, supported by their adopted family which is supplemented by two new additions. After the second arrives, Katniss finally Says Something that she couldn't say before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Measured In Cakes And Inches

It strikes me sometimes that I am still young, always with a faint feeling of surprise. 

I don't feel young. I don't even remember what feeling young felt like. I remember 'shy' and 'helpless' and other things I felt when I was young... I think... but I don't remember the sensation itself. 

My memory in't exactly reliable any more. After what Snow did, the period of my captivity that I try never to think about and can never forget, I can never be entirely sure of anything that came before the end of the war. Some things are well documented enough - I have watched parts of our Hunger Games, both of them, mostly the parts with me and Katniss together so that I can sort out the false memories from the true. I have gone through my old sketches, which tell me a little. 

Mostly, I don't think about the time before the war, or I try not to. I'm happy now, for all that the memories overwhelm me sometimes. I have my family, and that's all that matters. I have Katniss, loving me as I love her at last. I have our son, toddling on little chubby legs and looking up at me with his mother's grey eyes. And I have 'the kids', as Katniss usually refers to them. 

Lark is ten, with a bent for mathematics and a passion for gardening that I help with as much as I can. Call is Katniss's shadow, as I vaguely remember Rue was once, a young hunter who is currently much frustrated by the way growing six inches in eight months has forced him to learn how to control his limbs all over again. And Sage is fifteen, nearly sixteen, and already working as hard as an adult in the bakery he and I run together. I don't need the money - Katniss and I have been allowed to keep drawing our Victor's stipends, on the tacit understanding that we never darken the Capitol's door again - but Katniss worried about the kids learning a trade or something, being able to take care of themselves. And I like baking, and people need to eat. 

When a pretty girl with Seam-dark hair and a roguish smile turns my serious Sage into a babbling mess, I step in as tactfully as I can and smooth over his embarrassment. When she's gone, I can't help grinning at him. "So. What's her name?"

Sage's skin is dark enough that it's hard to tell if he's blushing, but I'm pretty sure he is. "Iris. She... she's in my class at school." 

"I see. What's she like?"

"Well, she's nice." Sage turns away to rearrange the loaves on a tray. "Funny - she always makes everyone laugh. And she likes kids. There's only a few younger ones yet." Then he glances at me anxiously and I grip his shoulder silently, trying to reassure him. The kids know that talking about what happened to District Twelve - why there are so few of us here, why there are almost no children - often sends me into flashback. But I'm all right this time. 

"She sounds nice." I turn away, thinking that I am glad Sage has found a girl something like his own age to like - there still aren't a lot of choices - and it strikes me as it occasionally does that I am only... is it seven years older, or eight? Katniss and I no longer celebrate birthdays or think about our ages, by a tacit agreement we've never had to put into words. 

I think about it, over the next few hours. I am twenty-three, I think. I am almost sure. I was taken for Reaping seven years ago. I was taken by Snow about a year after that. Call and Sage and Lark came to us more than a year later. Since then the years have been measured in New Year cakes with pictures on top, in inches added to the measurements I make on a doorframe every year to show how much they've grown, in additions to our family. Beech still only vaguely understands that his mother's stomach is growing because there's a baby inside it, but the older ones are all excited. Lark and Call are both hoping for a girl. Sage worries that a girl will remind Katniss too much of Prim, though he doesn't say it to anyone but me. 

I'm not old enough to be their parent, and I think that they think of Katniss and I more as older siblings than as parental figures... but I feel old enough. Especially when I realise that Sage is almost as old as I was when I went into the Arena. He is a child, if he isn't my child, and the thought that he or Call or Lark might have been taken as Rue was, as we were... 

I have nightmares that night about Sage dying under Enobaria and Marvel's blades, and Katniss is there to wake me. When I tell her what I dreamed she nods, drawing my head down to her shoulder. "I have that one," she says softly, holding me in the possessive way I don't think I will ever tire of. "With all of them. And Beech, too." 

I rest my hand on her belly, where our second child prepares to give us both nightmares of loss. I have them already, nightmares of a miscarriage or a difficult birth snatching Katniss away from me. I love our children, but she isn't the only one frightened by her pregnancy. "I know. But that won't happen. We made sure." 

She nods, her cheek brushing my forehead. "I did something new," she says softly, sounding pleased. "The other day, I forgot to tell you... I was talking to Lark about the garden, about growing some of those seeds she bought, and I remembered that the first time I ate fennel was in District Thirteen. And then I thought 'that was a long time ago'." 

I hug her tightly. "Good." I understand why she's so pleased. For so long after, it felt as if the war was just... everything. As if we could never leave it behind. But we're starting to, now. Years of New Year cakes, of growing children, have gently eased in between us and those memories. They'll never go away, I know that, but it helps to have some distance. To be able to think 'that was a long time ago'. "I was thinking about how long ago it was today," I tell her, lifting my head to kiss her gently. "We're twenty-three. Just over seven years since it started." 

"Oh." Katniss sounds as surprised as I felt when I worked it out. "It's... I feel older than that. But at the same time it doesn't feel like it's been that long. Is that weird?" 

"It's like that for me too." I draw her close, my surest comfort against those memories. "But it's been a long time." 

It has been a long time. Maybe that's why, a while later, I don't recognize the woman who walks into my bakery. There's less than two thousand people in Twelve now, and nearly everyone who comes in I know by sight at least, so not knowing her is unusual. This is a new face. She has fair hair and blue eyes, which is unusual now - not many of the Town people survived the bombinb - but not unheard of. Her face is lined with suffering, which is nothing unusual, and she walks as if she's tired. My arms are full of a tray of herb rolls, so it's Sage who greets her. "Good morning. What can I get you?"

She smiles a little at him. "Hello, dear. I was... actually, I was looking for Peeta." 

I don't recognize her face without makeup, or the plain shirt and skirt in drab grey, or the slightly lank hair falling to brush her shoulders. But I would know her voice anywhere. I drop the rolls on the counter and all but shove Sage aside. "Effie? Effie, is that you?" 

She smiles at me, a shaky smile, and when I reach out to hug her she clutches me tightly. "Oh," she says, her voice breaking. "Oh, Peeta - you look so much better. So happy. Oh, my dear, I'm so glad." 

I wish I could say the same. Effie may have been thoughtless and often patronising and always a little silly, but she really did love us in her way. She tried so hard to protect us, lined up sponsors, cried when Snow tried to take our future away. I only saw her once after the war, and then only because I asked. She'd been 'retrieved' to help handle Katniss - silly, well-meaning Effie was always one of the few people who could manage Katniss - but she wasn't... right. Her eyes were too blank, her smile too fixed, and she wouldn't talk about what had happened to her since the Games. 

She looks worse now physically than she did then, thin and worn and tired, but her eyes are clear when I draw back to look at her. "It's so good to see you," I tell her, and mean it. "How have you been?" 

Her lips tremble. "Well... well, prison isn't exactly enjoyable, dear," she says, trying to smile with lips that tremble. "But it wasn't so bad. And anyway, I'm out now." 

I stare at her. "Wait... what? What prison?" 

She bursts into tears, then, and I leave Sage to mind the shop while I take her into the back where the ovens are. I sit her down and make her drink some tea, and slowly a story emerges. 

She was 'retrieved' from a cell, cleaned up and dressed up in an attempt to placate Katniss, who got so oddly upset over her prep team. And she tried, she really did, she assures me, but the drugs they gave her made it so hard to think. She would have known if her mind was clear that Katniss was planning something. Who knew her Victors better than she did? 

"Not many people," I tell her, and I mean it. She may not have understood us very well, at first, but she paid attention. Not many people do - they think they know someone because they spend time together. Effie watched us every minute. She remembered what food we liked or didn't like, she could read our moods and did her best to help us. I will never forget that awful Victory Tour, when she kept trying to prompt us to behave the way the Capitol wanted us to, swooping in to cover Katniss's lapses, watching us with worried eyes and never stopping us from sharing a bed even though she wanted to. 

But after Katniss was arrested, when I was still in hospital, they arrested her again. She was complicit in the Games, after all. She was the one who drew the names. She's lucky, she says unsteadily. Most of the district reps didn't survive. A couple were killed by their own Victors, others were executed when the war was over and the trials started. She might have been one of them, if we hadn't kept asking for her. Me twice, Haymitch several times. Katniss might have been on trial for murder, but the District Twelve Victors were still important enough that they didn't quite dare execute Effie. Instead she was tried and sentenced, kept on hand so they could trot her out if we demanded her again. 

"Of course you couldn't," she says, seeming to know how guilty I feel and reaching over to pat my hand. "They exiled poor Katniss, and Haymitch couldn't leave her - and I knew you had to come and take care of her, as soon as you could. I wouldn't have had you do anything else. And it really wasn't so bad, you know. Well, the food was." She shudders. "But there were so many of us, you know, most of them much more involved than I was. And Mr Latier and Miss Mason told them I'd helped you, that I'd tried to protect you, so I was only given ten years. Low security, too. And then last month I was given my parole, because I was such a model prisoner and I really hadn't meant any harm..." Her voice breaks. "And I didn't, Peeta, I really didn't. I didn't understand, not at first." 

I hug her again, my eyes burning and my throat tight. "I know you didn't. I know. You tried so hard to help us, even when we were rude to you or didn't listen." 

She laughs shakily into my shoulder. "You mean when Katniss was rude to me. You never were." 

I grin, knowing it's true. "Well, she was rude enough for both of us." 

"She was. But I don't blame her." Effie pulls back to wipe her eyes. "Anyway. After they let me out of prison, I didn't really have anywhere to go. The friends and family who survived the war naturally didn't want to be associated with me, not after... well, everything. And no-one wanted to hire me, either, once they heard my name. So I thought..." She swallows hard. "So I thought I would come and visit. See how you were getting on. And... and if you didn't mind, you and Katniss and Haymitch, m-maybe I could stay? Here in Twelve, I mean? I asked, and they said there aren't many people here, so surely I could find work doing something..." 

I feel so guilty that I'm queasy with it. We forgot about her, just left her there... yes, we were so badly damaged at first we could hardly function, but that was years ago. We should have thought of her. "Of course you'll stay here. Don't even think about leaving. I'm going to tell Sage what's going on and then you're coming straight home with me, you hear me? Katniss and Haymitch are going to want to see you, and you need a good meal and some rest." 

She starts to cry again, and I have to wipe my eyes too. On the slow walk up to the Village - closer to the tiny town than it used to be, since the rebuilding didn't exactly overlap the original town - I tell her about what we've been doing. About adopting Rue's siblings, about Katniss and I getting married, about Beech and the baby that's coming. About Haymitch's geese, and how much less he's drinking these days. 

Katniss doesn't recognise Effie either, not until Effie says her name. Then she startles everyone - including herself, I suspect - by throwing herself at Effie and bursting into noisy tears. By the time we have her at least partially calmed down, Lark has fetched Haymitch and there's even more hugging. Haymitch, at least, doesn't cry, but he tells Effie that her hair is pretty and blows his nose several times. 

When Effie is settled on a couch, with Beech on her lap and Haymitch pouring her a drink and telling her all about our toasting, Katniss follows me into the kitchen and hugs me tightly, burrowing her face into my shoulder. "I can't believe we forgot about her," she says, sounding as guilty as I feel. 

"We didn't know she'd been arrested," I remind her, holding her tightly. "We saw her free and working. We thought she was safe." 

"We should have checked." 

"I should have checked." I kiss her gently. "You aren't allowed back, but I am. I'm the one who should have followed up, made sure she was okay." 

"I should have asked Doctor Aurelius, at least." She wipes her eyes on the back of her hand. "Well. She's here now. And she's ours. Even if she and I don't always get along." 

They never have, and they still don't. Effie is still Effie, and Katniss still eats with her knife just to annoy her. But Effie stays. With us, at first, until Haymitch offers her one of the bedrooms in his house. Effie's as startled by that as we are, until he points out that firstly, his house is much less full of children, and secondly, he doesn't like cleaning his own kitchen. I think he feels guilty too. He wasn't the wreck Katniss was, or I was. He could have checked on her and he didn't. 

After the expected screaming rows - Haymitch is messy, Effie is still painfully neat - they settle in quite comfortably together. They may not always have been friends, exactly, but they know each other pretty well and, in their way, I think they're fond of each other. Sage and I teach Effie to cook, which she's very good at even if we have trouble breaking her of the habit of garnishing everything. 

When Katniss delivers our daughter, Effie is right there. Not actually handling the delivery - the doctor and I do that - but she rallies Haymitch and the kids, keeping hot water and clean linen coming, making me eat during the long labour and sending in cups of soup that Katniss can sip between contractions. She and Sage take care of Beech, and when it's all over she hugs me and tucks me into bed with my wife and new daughter like a mother might, if my mother had actually liked me.

When the baby wakes us in the night, I settle behind Katniss in place of pillows, so she can lean back against me while the baby nurses. "She's beautiful." 

"She looks like a skinned rabbit." That's Katniss, pretending not to be sentimental while she cuddles her baby possessively. 

"But a beautiful skinned rabbit." I touch one of the tiny hands gently. "Have you decided about the name yet?" After Beech was born, he was 'the baby' for nearly a month before we finally decided on a name. We learned from that, and have been discussing names for either boy or girl for months now. As before, I've left the final decision up to Katniss. 

Now she turns her head to look up at me. "Angelica," she says softly. "I think Angelica." 

The name I wanted, if it was a girl. Katniss favoured Willow, another tree name, and I was sure she'd choose that. Angelica is a herb, and not the most long-lived, either - but it's one of my favourites and I cook with it a lot. I like it for its sweet-scented flowers and its aromatic flavours, for its hardiness and the zest it adds to everything from tea to fish to cake. And it's a pretty name. 

I swallow hard, gathering them closer. "Thank you," I whisper, throat suddenly tight. She has given me a daughter, small and red and perfect, and now she offers me the name as well, a gift I would never have expected or asked for. 

Katniss turns her head again, tilting it up to kiss under my chin. "I love you," she says simply. It's rare that she actually says the words - words have never been her strong point - though she lets me know it every day. 

"I love you too." I hold her as tightly as I dare. "I love you more than I could ever have words for." 

She smiles, I can see it in the dim light. "You have no idea," she says softly, "how hard I tried not to love you." 

The words are startling, enough to remind me of the bad days when I believed she didn't, and I look down at her. "What?" 

Her eyes are steady as she looks up at me. "Remember when we were taken for the first Games, and Haymitch threw up all over himself? You took him and cleaned him up? I wondered why you wanted to do it, why you wouldn't just hand him over to the Capitol people. And I realised that you were being kind." With the hand not supporting the baby she takes my hand and twines our fingers together, looking at them. "And I knew I had to push you away because kindness... kindness was always my weakness. I knew you would find your way into my heart if I let you. And I tried so hard not to let you. And the harder it was, the harder I fought, because I knew that if I gave in, if I let myself..." Her voice is tight, and she looks down at Angelica "I didn't want to be like my mom. I didn't want to love someone like that, so much that the world would end without him. So I pushed you away over and over, because I knew that if I let myself, I would love you so much..." 

She has never told me this. I remember when she told me that she loved me, that it was real. I accepted it then, and I never asked for how long. I never wanted to know that. If I didn't know, I could pretend it had always been real, that everything Snow told me and made me believe was just a lie. That she loved me.

But this is different, better, and though my hands are shaking I have never been surer of what is real. This is so much more real than I thought it had been - Katniss fighting the bond between us, pushing me away over and over because she was afraid of love, afraid of being vulnerable, caring but not wanting to, that is real. "Was that... why?"

I can't articulate it better than that, but she seems to understand. "I didn't want to love anyone but Prim," she says simply. "It just meant I could get hurt, and I.." Her voice wavers a little. "I was so tired of hurting. Even before the games. And then Rue died, and that hurt, and I almost lost you and I just... I couldn't stand it. But then there was the Victory Tour, and you held me when I had nightmares and I couldn't keep from caring... and then the Quarter Quell, and the Games, and I begged Haymitch to keep you alive, to let me die, but he didn't, they didn't, and they took you from me..." Her voice is wavering and tears are glinting on her cheeks. "They had me sedated for weeks. They kept giving me more and more drugs to make me function, but you were gone and Twelve was gone and nothing mattered. And then..." She closes her eyes, as if that can push the memories away. "And you thought I didn't love you. And I wasn't even sure, not then, because I'd been fighting it so hard for so long that I could want to die without you but I couldn't call it love, not even in my head. And I took it out on you and everyone else because I just hurt so much and I didn't know what to do or how to handle how I was feeling. Because everyone kept telling me you might not come back to me and... and I couldn't stand it..." She turns to me, burrowing her face into my neck, and Angelica makes a little hoarse sound of protest because her mother is holding her too tight. 

There are tears on my face too, but they don't matter. Nothing matters but this, and I hold them both close. "It's okay." 

"It's not. It's not. I hurt you, and I hurt everyone, and... and it didn't even work. I couldn't keep anything from hurting, it just made it worse." The words are coming out in a jumble of sobs now. "And if I hadn't been such a coward, if I hadn't been so scared of admitting it, we could have had a whole year between the Games, you would have known..." 

I won't tell her that doesn't matter, because it does. I would have given my soul for that year, while I was in Snow's hands and after, when I was learning how to be me again. But I understand, as I would have then if she'd been able to tell me. Katniss had been broken by trauma before ever we exchanged a word. Then the Games broke her again, and then Snow set out to reduce her to burned-out rubble like Twelve. She hurt too much to love quickly or easily, to let herself love me. But she wanted to. She had to fight it. From before the Games, she would have loved me if she could have. That's enough, and more than enough for me. "I know now," I tell her, ducking my head to kiss her fiercely. "That's what matters, Katniss. This. Now. The war will never go away, it will always have a hold on us. I know that. But we have this, now. We have each other. We have Beech and Angelica, and the kids and Haymitch and Effie. Whatever we had to go through to get here, we're here now. That's what matters." 

She cries briefly in my arms, then falls asleep almost as suddenly as Angelica. I sit up until dawn, holding them close. We are both scarred by the war, inside and out. But we have each other. We have our family. We have the book, to remind us of the people we lost, and we have a future. 

I am happy. 

When she wakes up, sore and still tired, she blushes when she looks at me and I smile at her. "You're embarrassed about what you said. Real?" 

She blushes harder. "Real. I'm not... I probably didn't even make any sense. I just... I feel like I let you down so badly. You were always there for me, loving me, and I wish..." 

"I know." I kiss her again, and then lean down to kiss Angelica too. "And thank you for telling me. But it's okay." She tries to protest, and I kiss her again to stop it. "It is. Katniss, so many people expected so much from you, and I didn't understand how hard it was for you. I don't think anyone did. But I know now. That's enough for me." 

She looks at me searchingly, and whatever she sees in my face seems to reassure her. She smiles then, and kisses me. "Good." 

When the New Year comes, I do have to make a larger cake. The extra fox-kit doesn't take up too much room in the tableau of animals gathered by a pond, but Effie's leggy, elegant egret is harder to fit in. She protests, saying that it's a family cake, and Katniss hugs her and tells her not to be stupid. If Haymitch belongs on the cake, so does she. 

And I am happy.


End file.
